“The thing is, to me, a movie is alive”
At Vulture, Matt Zoller Seitz interviews Carl Franklin “on how blues and noir shaped One Final Move, and the story behind that final shot. ” Read it here.
“Noir on the Range”
At the Criterion blog, Imogen Sara Smith writes about Noir Westerns. “Westerns cover a lot of territory. Dramatizing the most romantic of American myths, they also give form to the darkest inversions of those myths. The genre that celebrated rugged pioneer values and civilization’s conquest of the wilderness […]
Dashiell Hammett’s The Main Death
The Library of America shares Dashiell Hammett’s short story, “The Main Death,” and adds some context. “On its surface, “The Main Death” seems to be a straightforward puzzle mystery: an abundance of seemingly contradictory clues perplex the cops and detectives (and the reader), the Continental Op hunts down […]
“It’s Not Easy Hating Evil”: The Bad Sleep Well
For this year’s Switcheroo Month, I decided to write about a lesser known film by one of the most reputable directors around—Akira Kurosawa’s The Bad Sleep Well (1960). Set in then contemporary mid-Twentieth Century Japan, The Bad Sleep Well is the story of Koichi Nishi (Toshiro Mifune) seeking […]
Back To The Wharf!
The Gutter’s own Carol has some thoughts on Li Xiaofeng’s neo-noir, Back To The Wharf! She has additional thoughts on censorship and Chinese crime films. “Back To The Wharf is one of a wave of Chinese crime dramas in recent years. These films make up for the bloated, […]
It’s a new episode of Surreal Noir!
Hey, click through here to listen to the newest episode of Surreal Noir from friend of the Gutter Kate Laity! “Tonight’s episode dwells on Letty Lynton, which you may recall is a film, a novel by Marie Belloc Lownds and — gasp! — an early 20th century true […]
The Cultural Gutter 